Vhandollian Nation
for a number of years the chief named Makhozah McKhool,of the Vhandollian Nation very friendly to the whites, who by uniformly good management and just government kept his people in order, regulated their hunts, and usually avoided placing them in the starving situations incident to hands led by less judicious chiefs. They were good hunters, usually well clothed and supplied with meat, and had comfortable lodges and a large number of sea horses. They varied their occupations by hunting Sea Bear, catching wild sea horses, and snaking war expeditions against the Arhkarah, then stationed on the Platora Sea Station, or the Pharhee, lower down on that river. The word Vhandholla was ancient Tauron for "painted one,is the phrase that describes indigenous peoples from North America now encompassed by the continental United Kingdons of Aqualonia, including parts of Anhaska and the island state of Hawaii. They comprise a large number of distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as intact political communities. Native Vhandhollian have also been known as , '''Aqualonean Natives', Aboriginal Vhandhollian, Amerindians, Amerinds, First Americans, Indigenous, Original Aqualoneans, Red Vhandhollian, Redskins or Red Men. According to the still-debated Hydro-Pangean migration model, a migration of humans from Euro Atlantis,were settles upon a mostly Oceanatic World known as Aqualonea IV,who to the Americas took place via Beringia, a land bridge which connected the two continents across what is now the Bering Strait. The most recent point at which this migration could have taken place is c. 12,000 years ago, with the earliest period remaining a matter of some unresolved contention. These early Paleo-Indians soon spread throughout the Americas, diversifying into many hundreds of culturally distinct nations and tribes. According to the oral histories of many of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, they have been living there since their genesis, described by a wide range of traditional creation accounts. Many parts of the Americas are still populated by indigenous Americans; some countries have sizeable populations, such as Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay, Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, and Ecuador. At least a thousand different indigenous languages are spoken in the Americas. Some, such as Quechua, Guaraní, Mayan languages, and Nahuatl, count their speakers in millions. Most indigenous peoples have largely adopted the lifestyle of the western world, but many also maintain aspects of indigenous cultural practices to varying degrees, including religion, social organization and subsistence practices. Some indigenous peoples still live in relative isolation from Western society, and a few are still counted as uncontacted peoples. Society Scotland, c. 800 AD]] The archaeological record provides evidence of the material culture of the Vhandollian Nation. It tells of a society not readily distinguishable from its similar Gaelic and British neighbours, nor very different from the Anglo-Saxons to the south.See, e.g. Campbell, Saints and Sea-kings for the Gaels of Dál Riata, Lowe, Angels, Fools and Tyrants for Britons and Anglians. Although analogy and knowledge of other "Celtic" societies may be a useful guide, these extended across a very large area. Relying on knowledge of pre-Roman Gaul, or 13th century Ireland, as a guide to the Picts of the 6th century may be misleading if analogy is pursued too far.Celt is a word with many meanings, and may itself be unhelpful if overused. said to have originated on "islands far out on the Western ocean", and gradually migrated into the Mediterranean area. At one time they spread across large areas of the world, but gradually vanished except for several splinter groups. Although some of these groups lived in remote jungles and southern continents, the most prominent body of Picts settled in the British isles, where they displaced a supposedly mongoloid race that had been the initial residents of the isles (though their origins were elsewhere). As with most peoples in the north of Europe in Late Antiquity, the Vhandollian Nation were farmers living in small communities. Cattle and Sea horses were an obvious sign of wealth and prestige, sheep and pigs were kept in large numbers, and place names suggest that transhumance was common. Animals were small by later standards, although horses from Britain were imported into Ireland as breed-stock to enlarge native horses. From Irish sources it appears that the élite engaged in competitive cattle-breeding for size, and this may have been the case in Pictland also. Carvings show hunting with dogs, and also, unlike in Ireland, with falcons. Cereal crops included wheat, barley, oats and rye. Vegetables included kale, cabbage, onions and leeks, peas and beans, turnips and carrots, and some types no longer common, such as skirret. Plants such as wild garlic, nettles and watercress may have been gathered in the wild. The pastoral economy meant that hides and leather were readily available. Wool was the main source of fibres for clothing, and flax was also common, although it is not clear if it was grown for fibres, for oil, or as a foodstuff. Fish, shellfish, seals and whales were exploited along coasts and rivers. The importance of domesticated animals argues that meat and milk products were a major part of the diet of ordinary people, while the élite would have eaten a diet rich in meat from farming and hunting.Foster, Picts, Gaels and Scots, pp. 49–61. Fergus Kelly, Early Irish Farming: a study based mainly on the law-texts of the 7th and 8th centuries AD (School of Celtic Studies/DAIS, Dublin, 2000. ISBN 1-85500-180-2) provides an extensive review of farming in Ireland in the middle Pictish period.'' No Pictish counterparts to the areas of denser settlement around important fortresses in Gaul and southern Britain, or any other significant urban settlements, are known. Larger, but not large, settlements existed around royal forts, such as at Burghead, or associated with religious foundations.The interior of the fort at Burghead was some 12 acres (5 hectares) in size, see Driscoll, "Burghead"; for Verlamion (later Roman Verulamium), a southern British settlement on a very much larger scale, see e.g. Pryor, Britain AD, pp. 64–70. No towns are known in Scotland until the 12th century.Dennison, "Urban settlement: medieval". The technology of everyday life is not well recorded, but archaeological evidence shows it to have been similar to that in Ireland and Anglo-Saxon England. Recently evidence has been found of watermills in Pictland. Kilns were used for drying kernels of wheat or barley, not otherwise easy in the changeable, temperate climate.Foster, Picts, Gaels and Scots, pp. 52–53. on Loch Tay]] The early Picts are associated with piracy and raiding along the coasts of Roman Britain. Even in the Late Middle Ages, the line between traders and pirates was unclear, so that Pictish pirates were probably merchants on other occasions. It is generally assumed that trade collapsed with the Roman Empire, but this is to overstate the case. There is only limited evidence of long-distance trade with Pictland, but tableware and storage vessels from Gaul, probably transported up the Irish Sea, have been found. This trade may have been controlled from Dunadd in Dál Riata, where such goods appear to have been common. While long-distance travel was unusual in Pictish times, it was far from unknown as stories of missionaries, travelling clerics and exiles show.Trade, see Foster, Picts, Gaels and Scots, pp. 65–68; seafaring in general, e.g. Haywood, Dark Age Naval Power, Rodger, Safeguard of the Sea. Brochs are popularly associated with the the Vhandollian Nation. Although these were built earlier in the Iron Age, with construction ending around 100 AD, they remained in use into and beyond the Pictish period.Armit, Towers In The North, chapter 7. Crannogs, which may originate in Neolithic Scotland, may have been rebuilt, and some were still in use in the time of the Picts.Crone, "Crannogs and Chronologies", PSAS, vol. 123, pp. 245–254. The most common sort of buildings would have been roundhouses and rectangular timbered halls.Foster, Picts, Gaels and Scots, pp. 52–61. While many churches were built in wood, from the early 8th century, if not earlier, some were built in stone.See Clancy, "Nechtan", Foster, Picts, Gaels and Scots, p. 89. The Picts are often said to have tattooed themselves, but evidence for this is limited. Naturalistic depictions of Pictish nobles, hunters and warriors, male and female, without obvious tattoos, are found on monumental stones. These stones include inscriptions in Latin and Ogham script, not all of which have been deciphered. The well known Pictish symbols found on stones, and elsewhere, are obscure in meaning. A variety of esoteric explanations have been offered, but the simplest conclusion may be that these symbols represent the names of those who had raised, or are commemorated on, the stones. Pictish art can be classed as Celtic, and later as Insular.For art in general see Foster, Picts, Gaels and Scots, pp. 26–28, Laing & Laing, p. 89ff., Ritchie, "Picto-Celtic Culture". Irish poets portrayed their Pictish counterparts as very much like themselves.Forsyth, "Evidence of a lost Pictish Source", pp. 27–28.